party preparation

I'm going to a New Year's Eve party tonight. I asked if I should bring anything, since it's a casual party and I'm alway happy to contribute amongst friends.

So I get a call back telling me that I can bring whatever I want, maybe something fruity. "Anything to enhance our party experience". And in the next breath I'm told, "Maybe something non-alchoholic. And no opiates".

I know - lame friends.

I'm about to leave and pick up some stuff to "enhance the experience" as soon as I decide if I'd rather wear my new, dark blue, velveety jacket or my super-shiney, obnoxiosly sequined, also blue, shirt. If it weren't 35 degrees right now, I'd just use the jacket as a coat, and get to wear both. I think copy_princess would probably faint at that fashion faux pas, though.

new year

I've seen a few blog posts this week about how terrible New Year's Eve is.

I love New Year's Eve.

Why?

Because:

• Stay up (ok, this was a bigger deal when I was like 8)


• Eat tons of pork & saurkraut


• Have a few drinks


• Celebrate life and having one more year of it


• ...that kind of stuff

Perhaps people have BIG Expectations for New Year's Eve. It's supposed to be the party to end all parties. Which is fine, except that party happens on March 17th every year.

Find a few people you enjoy chillin' with. Stay in (everyone gets to drink!) or go out, whatever you like. And just enjoy being with people.

bring sour cream, we're celebrating...

Bring sour cream, we're celebrating Chanukah.

That was the text message I received from copy_princess on Tuesday evening.

I headed over to our (non-Jewish) friends' house where copy_princess made Potato Latkes (Kosher Potato Pancakes which are apparently much more difficult than the German kind) with apple sauce and sour cream. She also brough chocolate coins, but no one had a dradle to play with, so we just ate those.

copy_princess got a plastic mannorah for Christmas, which we lit and admired.

None of us are Jewish, but we enjoyed the Festival of Lights anyways. I think we're going to miss celebrating Kwanzaa together, but we'll all be there New Year's Eve for pork and saurkraut (1/2 of us are at least part German).

happy holidays

Merry Christmas Blogland!











I know it's not all PC, but I figure even if you don't celebrate Jesus' overly commercialized birth, you're still enjoying a sweet day off. Not as sweet as when it falls on a weekday, but still.

sights & sounds of tuba xmas

Merry Tuba Christmas!
from Columbus, Ohio

I've lost track of how many Tuba Christmas events I've played in. Today was my first Columbus event. I thought I'd post some Sights & Sounds for your enjoyment. If the video links are expired, just leave a comment and I'll re-upload soon (give me 24 hours). Sorry about the "fuzzy" noise and photos, I was trying to hold a camera and a tuba at the same time. Enough talk... on to the..

Tuba Sounds | Video

Good King Wenceslas

Silent Night

Silent Night cut off because I ran out of memory. But it's soooo pretty I had to include it.

We Wish You A Merry (Tuba) Christmas

Tuba Sights | Photos

Rehersal with assistant conductor Tony Zilnic



Some Service Men & Women at Tuba Christmas



A Tuba Player's View (my left)



A Tuba Player's View (my right)



Pretty Tubas during the first break



Shiny Sousaphone (Decorated) during a break



The Finale



Merry Tuba Christmas!

vacation: day 1

Today is the first day of my week long vacation. So far I have accomplished the following:

1) Wake up at 4:45 AM to get Silver Turtle Boyfriend to work on time

2) Come home and sleep until 9:44 AM

3) Shower

4) Play a couple scales and other warm-ups on my tuba (I haven't touched it for a month because I was doing all that bass playing).

5) Collect everything I need for Tuba Christmas this afternoon

6) Play on the internet, while drinking hot chocolate and hoping my last Christmas gifts arrive before I have to leave at 1:30ish for Tuba Christmas


I *heart* vacation

the fashion post

I don't care too much about fashion. I've always been a jeans/t-shirt/hoodie/skate shoes kind of gal. copy_princess is a fashion princess, too. She knows what's "it" and is into looking good when she goes out. The two of us happened to go Christmas shopping over the past few days. While lamenting the fact our boyfriends don't let us play dress up with them ("you'll dress me like a stupid skater" - Silver Turtle Boyfriend), we saw the next wave of fashion. And guess what we saw? At not one, but two stores.







Flannel Shirts




I knew it. I knew the 90s had to make a comeback eventually, and I could wear my warm, comfy flannel shirts over my t-shirt-over-a-long-sleeve-t-shirt* all winter. In fact, that's what I'm wearing right now (and this is totally a flannel I've owned since the 90s if you're wondering - I think there are pictures of me wearing it in my HS yearbook). Does it look stupid? Yes. Is it warm-yet-lightweight? Yes. If I get too warm, can I take it off and tie it around my waist? Mmmm.... maybe. Probably not until next summer though. Welcome back flannel shirts.



*In case you're wondering who started that t-shirt-over-a-long-sleeve-t-shirt trend.... it was me.

what kind do you like?

Maybe you didn't notice, but I'm kinda in to music. I listen to a lot of music, a lot of styles, etc. etc. But there are plently of things I hear that I don't like. And that's okay.

It's usually easier to say "I listen to almost anything" than to try and explain what specific sub-genres of every possible genre I like.

So this is an interesting take on that idea.

dear yahoo!...

First, you became the hotbed of SPAM, to the point that about 2% of my emails are anything I remotely care about. Luckily, I have gmail for important people and keep you as the spam-collector

Second, you buy flickr. I haven't experienced any out-of-the-ordinary issues yet. But every day on the flickr help and flickr bug boards there are people complaining of various issues that never happened until you bought them. So I'm guessing that's just a big yet.

Third, you buy blo.gs. Suddenly, I can't search or ADD any blogs to my blo.gs list - so every new or interesting blog I've found for the past 3 months I have to bookmark and it's a real PITA. Especially if I forget to bookmark it and then want to go search for it somewhere. If that wasn't enough, the website has been completely disabled for almost 2 weeks now.

Fourth, I have a web site through Yahoo! geocities web hosting. Silver Turtle Boyfriend has a web site through Yahoo! web hosting, too. Both of our sites suddenly disappeared from the internt about a month ago. We've tried to use the forms on your web page, but just get phising emails back. We tried to find a phone number - no luck. We *pay* for our web sites. We've had them for like 2 or 3 years with no problems. All of our data and images and files are still there. You're just not publishing the sites to the internet. Could you, like, maybe respond to one of our 5,000 emails?

So, dear Yahoo!, once the King of the Internet, could you please stop sucking and put my stuff back already?

Sincerely,
Silver Turtle - a former Yahoo! user who is doing her best to go over to the dark side known as GOOGLE.

...christmas time is here, time for joy and time for cheer...

and time once again for:

Tuba Christmas

Finally, there's a central website for the event & you can look up your local Tuba Christmi by state.

I start my vacation the same day as the Columbus event, so I'm going to play for the first time here! I've got a gig the night of Akron's -- that's the killer Tuba Christmas I grew up going to and playing in.